Why Hasn't Jason Collins Been Signed To An NBA Team? Collins Speaks Out

Ever since veteran NBA player Jason Collins came out as gay, we've wondered which team he'd be playing for. As it stands now, training camp has begun and Collins still hasn't received that all-important call. So what gives?

The question Collins has to ponder is why he has not been signed as a free agent. Is it because he is at best a marginal player with modest career statistics (3.6 points and 3.8 rebounds a game) nearing the end of his career, one who would cost more than a younger player based on the league’s collectively bargained pay scale? Or is there something more sinister at work related to the new role he would play?

Collins did not dismiss the latter notion or address it.

“You don’t want to speculate — I don’t go there,” he said, while picking at a bowl of greens in a cafe in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles, near where he lives. But while conceding he would at this stage of his career be at the lower end of a team’s depth chart, he admitted being perplexed because, he said, “I feel there are players in the league right now that, quite frankly, I’m better than.”

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Collins acknowledged that signing younger players would be more prudent financially but asked how experience could be discounted in such a competitive sport.

“In my mind it shouldn’t be about that,” he said, meaning cutting cost corners. “The N.B.A. is for the best players, not for the most affordable players. There isn’t a professional athlete that doesn’t want to play 12, 13 years. What I did when I was younger was look up to the guys like Dikembe Mutombo and Alonzo Mourning who played over a decade. What did they do to last that long? A lot of it is keeping your body in shape, keeping your mind sharp, staying hungry. You should always want guys around like that to set that example, in my mind.”